Legendary spinner Anil Kumble on Monday (November 24) highlighted India's unsettled batting line-up in Tests and constant tweaks in the order since the retirements of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

Kumble expressed his concerns as the team is staring at a second home series defeat within a year under head coach Gautam Gambhir.

While Gambhir has done exceptionally well with the white-ball team -- evident from Champions Trophy and Asia Cup triumphs – India’s Test performance has nose-dived since he assumed charge.

Gambhir's tenure as India Test coach has seen seven wins and nine losses, including a 0-3 clean sweep in their home series against New Zealand.

Under Gambhir, the position of No.3 has become a conundrum, with game of musical chairs being played out. During the England tour, Karun Nair was promoted to one down spot in the second and third Tests after Sai Sudharsan’s failure in the series opener.

After Nair was sidelined from the Test setup post England tour, Sudharsan was asked to bat at No. 3 against the West Indies at home, where he produced a fine knock of 87 in Delhi Test.

But the Indian think tank made a bold move in Kolkata Test against South Africa, dropping Sudharsan and promoting Washington Sundar to No. 3 position. The move backfired as the hosts suffered a shocking 30-run defeat to concede an unassailable 1-0 lead to Proteas in the two-match series.

With Sudharsan returning to the XI in Guwahati Test, Sundar was dropped down to No. 8, where he played another crucial knock of 48 runs, but India were bundled out for just 201 in reply to South Africa’s imposing first innings score of 489.

"I know, he (Sundar) sort of was pushed the top of the order, the last game, but I think his position, for me at least, is correct in terms of number seven, number eight, is where I think he should be batting, because this is where he can hurt the opposition. And the top order needs to settle down. But I thought he showed a lot of courage to just be there, hang around, and put together a really good partnership with Kuldeep Yadav. Otherwise, this, I'm sure, then Temba Bavuma wouldn't have had to go back to check whether he needed to, again, enforce follow-on. I am sure that if Kuldeep had got out early, I think India would have been batting here in the second innings. So yeah, it's a bit disappointing," Kumble said on JioHotstar after the end of third day’s play in Guwahati.

"The other aspect of also, you know, I want to bring this point about India's batting. Over the last three or four years, you've seen four batters in the top five either retired or not be picked. You know, if it is, you know, Virat Kohli is retired, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, then you have, of course... Rahane. So four out of five, plus Shubman Gill is not in this lineup. Yes, India did miss Shubman, the captain, but also, more importantly, missed him as a batter. So when you don't have that, you need to have a settled, sort of, lineup going through. They need to give them opportunities," he added.

Kumble, who has previously served the Indian team as coach, also stressed that constant shuffling in the batting order can be unsettling for players.

"Yes, they will come good, they will be off days. It's just a matter of supporting them for a period of six, seven, or eight Test matches. But if you look back at the last, what, 10-12 Test matches, the batting orders in the top has been up and down. There've been a lot of changes there, so that's, I'm sure, a bit unsettling for the players too. So looking at all of that, and the effort here, you know, you feel disappointed. You expected the effort to be better. Yeah, valid points that, uh, in terms of just the batting order, shuffling around a bit, uh, could be quite disturbing for some of these batters," he remarked.